Skip to main content
Dessert

Sponge Drops

A light, frothy cake made with eggs, sugar, flour, leavening, lemon, baked into small drops.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Sponge Drops

Oven, in the book's wordsA very quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs and sugar until frothy.

  2. Stir in the flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

  3. Add the lemon flavoring.

Bake and serve

  1. Drop teaspoonfuls of the mixture about three inches apart on a baking sheet.

  2. Bake in a very hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden, watching closely to prevent burning.

  3. Serve with ice cream.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Coffee + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,339 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whipped with sugar, they trap air that gives the drops their light, airy structure.
Sugar
Whipped with the eggs to help stabilise foam and add sweetness and browning.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the drops together as the eggs set.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter, stabilising the egg foam and helping it stay airy.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to release gas, helping the drops rise.

The step that matters

Watching the bake. The drops are small and sugary, so they brown quickly in a very hot oven. Checking closely prevents burning before the centres are set and cooked through.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, coffee, flour, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, coffee, flour, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More sponge drops recipes

Coconut 3 See all 34 →

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesCoffee Ice CreamCoffee Ice Cream91 recipes